Writing Web Pages 1
Web pages will be viewed by many kinds of computer, running many kinds of software.
This means they have to be written in a format which can be read by as many machines as possible.
A plain TEXT file is used, with special formatting instructions,
these instructions are written using HTML (HyperText MarkUp Language).
HTML rules are strict so the page can be read on as many machines as possible.
WARNING: It is possible to write a page which breaks the rules and looks OK on your machine,
it may not work on other machines.
It is possible to buy special HTML editors but these are not necessary.
Any software which can produce plain text files can be used to produce Web pages:
Word, Write, Notepad etc.
Some software such as Publisher and Creative Writer will quickly produce Web pages
and seem an attractive option, the code they produce tends to be in the form of a large
image which take a long time to load, they are best avoided.
Many commands are written as a a pair of tags:
When saving Web pages make sure that they are saved as a plain text file
and that the extension is .htm (on Windows 3.1) or .html (on Windows 95)
Not all the elements of a page will be seen on the screen.
For example: every page starts with a section
which contains information about the page but which is not displayed.
The page to be shown on the screen is enclosed in
The whole document is enclosed in
TEXT
You do not have the same control over fonts as when word processing.
These are some of the tags you can use:
italic
bold
underline
typewriter text
number can be 1, 2 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7
note American spelling
hexadecimal number can be any value from #000000 to #FFFFFF
COLOUR
These are defined as a six digit decimal number.
The first two digits define how much RED,
the middle two how much GREEN,
the final two how much BLUE,
they are preceded by a # sign and enclosed in quote marks.
#000000 Black
#FF0000 Red
#00FF00 Green
#0000FF Blue
#FFFFFF White
#00FFFF Cyan
#FF00FF Magenta
#FFFF00 Yellow
#CCCCCC Light grey
#0F0808 Pink
Or any combination you like:
e.g. #0620B4 is a very little red, some green, a lot of blue: navy blue.
LAYOUT
paragraph
, a blank line is left between paragraphs
page break, starts, a new line
hard return, draws a line
centres text note American spelling
BACKGROUND
BGCOLOR Colour of screen background
TEXT Colour of text
LINK Colour of link
VLINK Colour of visited links
IMAGES
Images must be in JPG or GIF format. JPG is best for photo-like images, GIF for drawings.
When using images it is important to state their size, so that they load properly.
You can Use Paintshop Pro to check an image's size.
You should also give a brief description in the quotes following ALT
for those browsers which do mot display pictures.
Poorly selected pictures take a long time to load, use Paintshop Pro to reszie a picture
and reduce the number of colours so it is a sensible size.
(Aim at less than 20K).